The description relates to polarizing lamps.
In some examples, a liquid crystal display includes a backlight unit having cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) or light emitting diodes (LED) that generate light that is randomly polarized. Linearly polarized light is used to illuminate the pixels in order to obtain a high contrast ratio. A linear polarizer is used to transmit light having a preferred polarization and absorb light having an undesired polarization. This causes half or more of the light from the backlight unit to be wasted. Light recycling schemes can be used to increase the power utilization.